


Catch Me If You Can

by MarInk



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, Hogwarts!au, M/M, No age difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22890919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarInk/pseuds/MarInk
Summary: Aka that Hogwarts!AU drabble no one asked for.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	Catch Me If You Can

Len is watching him. It’s creepy, he knows. Creepy and crawly, like a true Slytherin.

Well, it’s not like he’s making much effort to hide, sitting in the middle of empty bleachers, but Allen doesn’t seem to notice anyway, zipping around after the snitch so fast, it’s almost like he blurs in the air sometimes.

Len shifts the book lying in his lap - it’s heavy and his legs are starting to fall asleep under it. It’s ‘Hogwarts: A History’, open on the Harry Potter chapter. Len likes to imagine himself in a hero tale occasionally. Usually as the hero because that’s what stories are for.

Real life, it’s a bit more complicated.

Allen is having the time of his life up there, judging by how he whoops and laughs, making circles and feints and spirals. He’s far enough that Len only sees a tiny red silhouette on a broom, but Len knows Allen must be smiling, beaming even, cheeks flushed with exertion and wind, hair in absolute disarray. It’s how he looks after games - which he all wins, of course. The Gryffindor golden boy. Gryffindor always has one, it seems.

In a couple of months Len will graduate, and then it’s straight to Knocturn alley for him. His father already has all sorts of plans for him. Unlike Allen who is muggleborn and whose family will probably be happy with whatever he does. It’s not like they can even understand magic, after all.

Len is fine with muggles, actually. But he is not fine with Allen who will have his pick of the best Quidditch teams - headmistress Granger once had to kick out some foreign team scouts who were planning to camp on Hogwarts grounds until Allen is done with his studies so they can snatch him up first - and wants to be an auror of all things.

Len’s father used to be an auror until it came to light what a crooked asshole he was and they threw him out. Dishonorable discharge, they say. Len wishes they sent Lewis to rot in Azkaban which is not a nice place even without the dementors.

He looks at Allen and there’s that longing in Len’s gut - for a freedom like that, for carefree laughs, for not having to hide scars under the wide sleeves of the robes. For Allen.

He thumbs a page absent-mindedly.

Len used to daydream about something happening right here, at Hogwarts. Like dementors on the Quidditch field, same as happened to Harry Potter, and Allen would start falling, and Len would save him, catch him. He learned every slowing charm there was and invented one of his own, the Cold charm as he calls it in his head. Allen may have a slight case of frostbite after a rescue like that but it’s much better to be alive and frostbitten that dead and warm, isn’t it?

Ugh. Even in daydreams, Len manages to screw it up somehow.

He discarded them anyway after he found out Allen was pining after a Muggle girl he grew up with. Not even a guy. And Len thought his chances were infinitesimal before he’d learned this particular tidbit.

He wishes he knew if that girl likes Allen back. She must, how could she not?

Allen catches a snitch far above Len and lets it go. He hovers there for a minute, giving the snitch a fair head start before chasing it again.

He better not adapt the same practices with criminals when he’s an auror or he’s gonna be in a heap of trouble very soon. For example if he catches someone like Len - like who Len is going to be.

It’s okay, though. It’s all okay. Len can do it, as long as Lewis doesn’t try to get Lisa into crime, too. She’s starting Hogwarts next year, and Len is planning to do his damnedest to keep her out of Lewis’ clutches. She’s going to learn and have a good life, not like Len.

He smiles, remembering how Lisa hugged him before he went off to school for his seventh year. She is a tiny thing, all eyes and curls, and she calls him Lenny, the only one he likes to hear that nickname from. 

If Lewis tries to screw up her life too, Len will kill him. Let Allen or whatever auror take him to prison for that. Len is already a dozen scars and felonies beyond caring.

Something glints in front of his face. He blinks, refocusing his eyes, and it’s the snitch. Its small wings are golden semicircles and the setting sun is bathing it in warm light. Len has never seen one up close.

“Come on, catch it,” Allen’s voice says, and Len flinches from how sudden it is.

He looks up at Allen, and yes, there is that beaming smile and shining hazel eyes. Len is expecting an indignant speech about filthy spying Slytherins but Allen is just smiling and nodding in the direction of the snitch.

Surely he can see Len is a Slytherin. Those house crests on their robes are there for a reason.

“You’re the Seeker,” Len points out, bemused.

“Yeah, but I can’t hog all the fun, now can I?” Allen laughs. “You’re Len, right?”

Len has no idea why or how Allen knows his name. He opts to just nod.

“Here, Len,” he likes how his name sounds in Allen’s voice. Like music. He wants to hear it again. “Just close your hand around it. Quickly though. If it knows it’s about to be actually caught, it’s gonna veer off as best it can.”

Allen demonstrates for Len how to catch a snitch, stopping his hand a scant couple of inches away from the golden ball. It doesn’t look that hard from where Len is sitting.

“So if I catch this ultimate prize, I win?” Len asks.

“Yeah, that’s how Quidditch works,” Allen laughs.

“And what do I win, precisely?”

The look on Allen’s face means Len is being weird. Len knows this kind of look. People usually roll their eyes and go away after giving him that look.

Allen stays, though.

“Whatever you want,” Allen says and grins so wickedly that Len would think he’s being flirted with, except that is impossible. Even the Muggle girl aside, Allen can have his pick of anyone in this school.

Oh well. Why not push a little more until Allen, too, goes away.

Len outstretches his hand and catches his ultimate prize, squeezing tight around it so it won’t escape. Allen’s fingers are incredibly warm against Len’s palm, and even this innocent touch makes Len’s skin tingle like there’s a tiny lightning dancing against it.

“You know, you’re very bad at it,” Allen observes, tilting his head to one side and making no effort to free his hand. “You’re supposed to catch the snitch, you know that, right?”

“I caught exactly what I wanted,” Len says. He schools his face into impassivity while his heart goes into hysterical overdrive against his rib cage.

“In that case, you win,” Allen turns his hand slightly and squeezes back. “Name your spoils.”

A kiss, Len thinks. A night.

A whole life.

“Buy me a butterbeer tomorrow in Hogsmeade,” he says instead.

“What, and that’s it?” Allen looks strangely disappointed.

“Oh no, that’s just setting the scene,” Len smirks. “While we’re having a drink, I’m going to tell you exactly what I want for my victory.”

Allen smiles at him again, almost shyly, and Len wants to kiss him so much, it hurts.

“It’s a date,” he says and flies off.

Len watches him go, scarlet and golden in the last rays of the sun, the phantom of the touch they just shared still blooming on his skin.

The forgotten snitch settles down on the bench next to Len, wings hanging forlornly as if it can’t believe its favorite playing buddy is flying away without it. Len picks it up gently. He can commiserate with the feeling of missing Barry Allen’s hands on him, now.

“Don’t sulk,” he tells the snitch. “I’ll take you with me to Hogsmeade to meet him tomorrow, how does that sound?”

The snitch buzzes in Len’s hand and wraps a wing around his wrist as if agreeing with the plan.

Len is going to get in trouble for not returning school property immediately. Allen is going to get in trouble for forgetting the snitch out here.

Well, as long as they are in trouble together, it might not be as bleak of a prospect after all.

Len catches himself smiling and wills tomorrow to come faster.


End file.
